The present invention is directed to a device for the conversion of a plurality of light beams into a more compact arrangement of light beams comprising a plurality of light guiding layers, which are provided for infeed, guidance and outfeed of one of the light beams, each layer having an infeed end face for coupling respective light beams into the layer and an outfeed end face in which the light beam in the layer is coupled out of the layer, and the outfeed end faces and the light beams coupled out from the outfeed faces are arranged one above the other in a direction extending perpendicular to a defined plane to outfeed the light beams to a more compact device.
German Published Application 196 12 673 discloses a device which has a plurality of light-conducting layers, with each layer having an infeed end face and each layer having an outfeed end face, with the outfeed end faces being arranged one above the other so that the light coupled from the outfeed faces is arranged in a stacked order. In this known device, the plurality of light-guiding or light-conducting layers are composed of elongated, strip-like optical waveguides, whose infeed end faces and, accordingly, whose end sections adjoining these faces are arranged in a common plane extending parallel to a defined plane and are arranged side-by-side with a predetermined spacing. By contrast thereto, the outfeed end faces and, accordingly, the end sections of these waveguides adjoining these outfeed faces are stacked one above the other in a direction extending perpendicular to the defined plane.
Each waveguide whose infeed end face extends parallel to the defined plane is laterally offset relative to the outfeed end face of this waveguide and comprises a slightly S-shaped curvature that is all the more pronounced the greater the lateral spacing between the infeed end faces from the outfeed end faces of the waveguide.
The predetermined spacing of the infeed end faces of the waveguide corresponds to the predetermined spacing parallel to the defined plane in which the light beams are to be fed to the waveguide through these end faces and to be compacted and spread from one another.
A manual preparation is required in the manufacturing of this known device, wherein the individual waveguides are placed on top of one another at their outfeed end faces.